FAYETTEVILLE — Many aspiring Olympians took the Games’ coronavirus cancellation with a heartbreaking jolt, then realized it’s for the best.
Brooke Schultz, the University of Arkansas junior diver with an NCAA 1-meter championship and NCAA runner-up, and a host of national and international 3-meter honors, processed it slightly in reverse.
Schultz and fellow Razorbacks women’s diving teammate Maha Amer, a 17-year-old Egyptian Olympian at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, redshirted this 2019-20 season preparing for their countries’ Olympic trials while still coached by Dale Schultz, the Razorbacks' diving coach and Brooke’s father.
Now all that preparation idles with the Games for Tokyo postponed to 2021.
“My first thought was canceling it was the obvious decision, that it wasn't safe to put the event on,” Brooke Schultz said. “But after it got officially postponed it kind of hit me that it’s a whole another year. It was kind of crazy. I’m still kind of processing.”
Processing, of course, she said, knowing no Games are best for the world’s health and her own. And for her diving career, better delay now than, say, postponing the World Championships after her 2022 senior year.
Many divers go into an Olympics or World Championships as a last hurrah then move on to their lifetime vocation.
“I’ve got two more years of college diving so my diving career goals didn’t change,” said Schultz, a UA business major. “It’s still the best for sure.”
Had Schultz and Amer competed for Arkansas this season their 2020 NCAA Championship aspirations would have been canceled six days before their start.
So in 2021 they will gun for SEC and NCAA titles, then the Olympic Trials and the long-scheduled World Championships
“It’s not fair to the team to redshirt them two years in a row,” Dale Schultz said. “They need to compete. I redshirted them mainly so they wouldn’t have so much travel on their bodies and wouldn’t be worn out for the Olympic Trials. Now we have to balance it.”
Brooke Schultz asserts they will.
“It obviously won’t be the training we had this year for Olympics preparation,” she said. “It’s going to be challenging but definitely manageable.”
Brooke Schultz never wants giving less than her best for Arkansas.
Born in Fayetteville, Brooke Schultz always yearned to return after Dale, first coaching at Arkansas under former Razorbacks swimming All-American Martin Smith, “came home,” as Brooke and Dale put it. In 2016, Dale joined Swimming Coach Neil Harper’s Arkansas program after coaching at Ripfest Diving in Indianapolis and three years at the University of Florida.
“I love it,” Fayetteville High grad Brooke said of her always hometown.
Her making Arkansas Olympian proud is no pipe dream.
Her many credentials include winning last February’s Germany Grand Prix, plus two U.S. championships and a USA World Trials championship.
“She has as good a shot at making the Olympics as anybody in the country,” Dale Schultz said. “We’ve just got to find a good balance and a way to get it done.”